Early MorningLearning Sessions
8:30–9:30 a.m.

3102-Measuring What Matters—Three Essential Questions

Jay McTighe, McTighe and Associates Consulting, Columbia, MD

In this session, we’ll examine the ideas in "Three Key Questions on Measuring Learning," Jay McTighe's featured article in the February 2018 issue of Educational Leadership magazine. Participants will examine different types of goals for modern schooling (academic content based on standards, 21st century skills, and habits of mind); consider the assessment implications of these different goal types; explore Curriculum Mapping 3.0 (mapping the curriculum around desired performances rather than simply a scope and sequence of content to be covered); and examine ways of using measures that matter to enhance student learning and performance.

3103-Ten Ways to Use Social Media to Tell Your School's Story

Monica Burns, Class Tech Tips, LLC, Jersey City, NJ

How do you tell your school's story? Social media provides schools with new avenues to share the great work happening in classrooms with the wider community. Join Monica Burns, ASCD author, former classroom teacher, and advocate for the purposeful use of digital tools in the classroom, to learn about the best strategies, tips, and tools for telling your community and the world about the successes at your school. Attendees will participate in hands-on activities with the free Adobe Spark tools.

3104-Developing the Capacity of Classroom-Based Teacher Leaders to Lead for Racial Equity

Anna Zucker-Johnson and Katherine Messer, Showcase Schools, New York City Department of Education, New York, NY

Showcase Schools creates professional learning for schools to share their promising practices with broad audiences of New York City educators. By developing the capacity of Showcase Fellows—cohorts of teacher leaders—to design transformational adult learning, Showcase Schools expands individual successes to educators across the city, ensuring that high-quality instruction doesn’t remain siloed in individual classrooms or districts. In this session, participants will learn about the Showcase Schools approach to developing fellows to promote racial equity. We convene cohorts throughout the year to explore the effects of race on their own lives and the lives of their students. We provide fellows with tools to engage other educators in this exploration, with the goal of improving classroom practices to be informed by and responsive to students' racial identities. Participants will examine the Showcase Fellows curriculum and practice using tools for engaging in conversations about race.

3105-Using STEAM Partnerships to Reduce the Opportunity Gap

Using enhanced and intentional partnerships within and around its community, the Oxford School District in Mississippi is working to create STEAM experiences for students in all grade levels to expose them to opportunities they may not otherwise have while in school. The district has the largest achievement gap in the state and, according to Stanford University, one of the largest in the country. With the school district located in a university community, many of its students have access to academic opportunities outside of school, largely because the families can afford to provide these experiences, but more than 40 percent of the students are of a low socioeconomic status and may not have the same opportunities and experiences. Participants will discover how other schools are using community partnerships and evaluate how they can enhance their network of community partners in the STEAM field.

It can be a challenge for educators to create an engaging classroom environment that supports all students having access to the general education curriculum. Brain research suggests that active learning tasks support the release of dopamine and neurotransmitters, which can motivate every learner in your class to be intellectually engaged. Integrating two-minute active learning strategies helps students store and retrieve information, increases their energy levels, and helps with positive social interactions in the inclusive classroom. Proactive planning to incorporate these opportunities for students to be directly involved in their learning can result in positive student outcomes. After this session, you will be able to identify the instructional components required for student engagement, define student engagement, implement two-minute active learning strategies, and understand how to choose strategies to meet individual student needs.

3107-Empower Learning Through Universal Design for Learning

Allison Posey, Center for Applied Special Technology, Boston, MA

How can educators meet the diverse needs of students in our classrooms, including cognitive, cultural, socioeconomic, ethnic, linguistic, and social-emotional? Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework to proactively design environments so that all learners can access and achieve challenging learning goals. It provides a series of guidelines educators can use to design optimized learning for engagement (the "why" of learning), representation (the "what" of learning), and action and expression (the "how" to demonstrate learning). UDL is a strengths-based approach to lesson design grounded in neuroscience. This session will provide an overview of the UDL theory and offer concrete strategies for immediate implementation. UDL celebrates our diversity and empowers learning opportunities for all.

Students need opportunities engage in learning experiences that allow them to grapple with ambiguity and seek solutions to problems that do not yet have solutions, and teachers and school leaders must be equipped with the tools and resources to make this a reality. These experiences ultimately help students develop empathy, critical thinking, and other necessary 21st century skills. By connecting community problems to issues that cause them, schools can develop a framework for meaningful learning to transform classrooms while giving students opportunities to affect change globally. Through the use of design thinking and problem-based learning, this session will guide participants through creating an authentic unit that addresses standards across the curriculum while using the Sustainable Development Goals as a lens. In this highly interactive format, participants will have time to apply what they have learned and leave with resources to use right away.

3109-Leading with the Whole Child in Mind

Matthew Mingle and Bill Kimmick, Warren Township Schools, Warren, NJ

A comprehensive education includes developing both the academic and the social and emotional skills required to become successful in this century. The session will begin with an overview of how we have worked with our students, staffs, parents, and boards of education to lead with the whole child in mind. We will share effective approaches—including the organization of district goals, board retreats, professional development—aligned to the ASCD Whole Child tenets. Participants will then share their own examples and brainstorm ways to apply the ideas to both building and district leadership positions.

3110-Digital Badges and Portfolios: The Personalized Path to Competencies

David Niguidula, Ideas Consulting / Richer Picture, Providence, RI

Digital badges can help your school bring together two initiatives: competency-based education and personalized learning. We'll discuss the essential questions to help your school get started. How do we define badges? You'll see samples of student digital badges across the curriculum, from reading and writing to computer programming and culinary arts. How do badges personalize learning? You'll help create two types of badges: "required" badges, representing standards for all students, and "personal" badges, representing each student's individual learning plan. How do students earn badges? Students collect evidence from in-class assignments, extracurriculars, and independent projects and quests as a contemporary form of assessment. Using schoolwide rubrics, badges make it easier for teachers to track all student progress, yet still provide personalized feedback. Who sees the work? You'll participate in a "tour" review to learn how students show their progress to audiences from parents to college admissions.

With an increase in the availability of technology tools for classrooms, it is tempting to gravitate toward apps and devices that seem to offer the most "bling" in terms of student engagement. But if creating equitable learning experiences is our goal, it is important to move beyond engagement to empowerment by focusing on the tools that will provide students with access to rich resources and the ability to showcase their learning in diverse ways. Driven by the needs of teachers and students, this session will investigate how to select and use technology tools that offer the most "bang for the buck" in terms of resources, training, and impact. Through interactive learning experiences and guided by the principles of a differentiated classroom, participants will explore high-impact technology tools ideal for building a community of learners, checking for understanding, providing targeted feedback, and designing equitable learning opportunities to engage all students.

3112-Transforming Aggression, Defiance, and Disruptive Behaviors with the Skill of Self-Regulation

Lety Valero, Loving Guidance, Mexico City, Mexico

Self-regulation is the number one skill students need for success, yet 40 percent of them are missing it. Becoming emotionally literate is a priority in education; students need to be taught how to be aware of their own feelings and the feelings of others so that they can be acknowledged, managed, and accepted in healthy ways. By understanding the brain state model—the needs of the survival state, emotional state, and executive states—teachers will be able to help children wire their brains for impulse control and willingness through the skill of self-regulation. The session will explore in-depth the executive brain skills that are a key element for school success. The ultimate goal is to provide teachers with the knowledge to create classrooms where students are emotionally literate.

3113-Using Understanding by Design to Support English Language Learners

Amy Heineke, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL

This presentation centers on how to design rigorous instruction for English language learners (ELLs) using the Understanding by Design (UbD) framework, which embraces backward curricular design to promote students' deep and authentic learning that transfers to real-world contexts. By integrating culturally and linguistically responsive practices throughout the three stages of instructional design, this framework aims for ELLs to have equitable access to high-quality, grade-level curriculum that simultaneously prioritizes academic language development to actively engage and achieve in language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, fine arts, and special area classrooms. This presentation will introduce participants to the "language lens" on UbD, as well as model the design and implementation of disciplinary instruction to prioritize ELLs' backgrounds and abilities, analyze and target academic language, design authentic and responsive assessments, and plan instruction to promote disciplinary learning and language development.

Understanding by Design and UbD are trademarks of Backward Design LLC.

Late MorningLearning Sessions
10:00–11:00 a.m.

3202-Measuring What Matters—Three Essential Questions

Jay McTighe, McTighe and Associates Consulting, Columbia, MD

In this session, we’ll examine the ideas in "Three Key Questions on Measuring Learning," Jay McTighe's featured article in the February 2018 issue of Educational Leadership magazine. Participants will examine different types of goals for modern schooling (academic content based on standards, 21st century skills, and habits of mind); consider the assessment implications of these different goal types; explore Curriculum Mapping 3.0 (mapping the curriculum around desired performances rather than simply a scope and sequence of content to be covered); and examine ways of using measures that matter to enhance student learning and performance.

3203-Ten Ways to Use Social Media to Tell Your School's Story

Monica Burns, Class Tech Tips, LLC, Jersey City, NJ

How do you tell your school's story? Social media provides schools with new avenues to share the great work happening in classrooms with the wider community. Join Monica Burns, ASCD author, former classroom teacher, and advocate for the purposeful use of digital tools in the classroom, to learn about the best strategies, tips, and tools for telling your community and the world about the successes at your school. Attendees will participate in hands-on activities with the free Adobe Spark tools.

3204-Developing the Capacity of Classroom-Based Teacher Leaders to Lead for Racial Equity

Anna Zucker-Johnson and Katherine Messer, Showcase Schools, New York City Department of Education, New York, NY

Showcase Schools creates professional learning for schools to share their promising practices with broad audiences of New York City educators. By developing the capacity of Showcase Fellows—cohorts of teacher leaders—to design transformational adult learning, Showcase Schools expands individual successes to educators across the city, ensuring that high-quality instruction doesn’t remain siloed in individual classrooms or districts. In this session, participants will learn about the Showcase Schools approach to developing fellows to promote racial equity. We convene cohorts throughout the year to explore the effects of race on their own lives and the lives of their students. We provide fellows with tools to engage other educators in this exploration, with the goal of improving classroom practices to be informed by and responsive to students' racial identities. Participants will examine the Showcase Fellows curriculum and practice using tools for engaging in conversations about race.

3205-Using STEAM Partnerships to Reduce the Opportunity Gap

Using enhanced and intentional partnerships within and around its community, the Oxford School District in Mississippi is working to create STEAM experiences for students in all grade levels to expose them to opportunities they may not otherwise have while in school. The district has the largest achievement gap in the state and, according to Stanford University, one of the largest in the country. With the school district located in a university community, many of its students have access to academic opportunities outside of school, largely because the families can afford to provide these experiences, but more than 40 percent of the students are of a low socioeconomic status and may not have the same opportunities and experiences. Participants will discover how other schools are using community partnerships and evaluate how they can enhance their network of community partners in the STEAM field.

It can be a challenge for educators to create an engaging classroom environment that supports all students having access to the general education curriculum. Brain research suggests that active learning tasks support the release of dopamine and neurotransmitters, which can motivate every learner in your class to be intellectually engaged. Integrating two-minute active learning strategies helps students store and retrieve information, increases their energy levels, and helps with positive social interactions in the inclusive classroom. Proactive planning to incorporate these opportunities for students to be directly involved in their learning can result in positive student outcomes. After this session, you will be able to identify the instructional components required for student engagement, define student engagement, implement two-minute active learning strategies, and understand how to choose strategies to meet individual student needs.

3207-Empower Learning Through Universal Design for Learning

Allison Posey, Center for Applied Special Technology, Boston, MA

How can educators meet the diverse needs of students in our classrooms, including cognitive, cultural, socioeconomic, ethnic, linguistic, and social-emotional? Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a framework to proactively design environments so that all learners can access and achieve challenging learning goals. It provides a series of guidelines educators can use to design optimized learning for engagement (the "why" of learning), representation (the "what" of learning), and action and expression (the "how" to demonstrate learning). UDL is a strengths-based approach to lesson design grounded in neuroscience. This session will provide an overview of the UDL theory and offer concrete strategies for immediate implementation. UDL celebrates our diversity and empowers learning opportunities for all.

Students need opportunities engage in learning experiences that allow them to grapple with ambiguity and seek solutions to problems that do not yet have solutions, and teachers and school leaders must be equipped with the tools and resources to make this a reality. These experiences ultimately help students develop empathy, critical thinking, and other necessary 21st century skills. By connecting community problems to issues that cause them, schools can develop a framework for meaningful learning to transform classrooms while giving students opportunities to affect change globally. Through the use of design thinking and problem-based learning, this session will guide participants through creating an authentic unit that addresses standards across the curriculum while using the Sustainable Development Goals as a lens. In this highly interactive format, participants will have time to apply what they have learned and leave with resources to use right away.

3209-Leading with the Whole Child in Mind

Matthew Mingle and Bill Kimmick, Warren Township Schools, Warren, NJ

A comprehensive education includes developing both the academic and the social and emotional skills required to become successful in this century. The session will begin with an overview of how we have worked with our students, staffs, parents, and boards of education to lead with the whole child in mind. We will share effective approaches—including the organization of district goals, board retreats, professional development—aligned to the ASCD Whole Child tenets. Participants will then share their own examples and brainstorm ways to apply the ideas to both building and district leadership positions.

3210-Digital Badges and Portfolios: The Personalized Path to Competencies

David Niguidula, Ideas Consulting / Richer Picture, Providence, RI

Digital badges can help your school bring together two initiatives: competency-based education and personalized learning. We'll discuss the essential questions to help your school get started. How do we define badges? You'll see samples of student digital badges across the curriculum, from reading and writing to computer programming and culinary arts. How do badges personalize learning? You'll help create two types of badges: "required" badges, representing standards for all students, and "personal" badges, representing each student's individual learning plan. How do students earn badges? Students collect evidence from in-class assignments, extracurriculars, and independent projects and quests as a contemporary form of assessment. Using schoolwide rubrics, badges make it easier for teachers to track all student progress, yet still provide personalized feedback. Who sees the work? You'll participate in a "tour" review to learn how students show their progress to audiences from parents to college admissions.

With an increase in the availability of technology tools for classrooms, it is tempting to gravitate toward apps and devices that seem to offer the most "bling" in terms of student engagement. But if creating equitable learning experiences is our goal, it is important to move beyond engagement to empowerment by focusing on the tools that will provide students with access to rich resources and the ability to showcase their learning in diverse ways. Driven by the needs of teachers and students, this session will investigate how to select and use technology tools that offer the most "bang for the buck" in terms of resources, training, and impact. Through interactive learning experiences and guided by the principles of a differentiated classroom, participants will explore high-impact technology tools ideal for building a community of learners, checking for understanding, providing targeted feedback, and designing equitable learning opportunities to engage all students.

3212-Transforming Aggression, Defiance, and Disruptive Behaviors with the Skill of Self-Regulation

Lety Valero, Loving Guidance, Mexico City, Mexico

Self-regulation is the number one skill students need for success, yet 40 percent of them are missing it. Becoming emotionally literate is a priority in education; students need to be taught how to be aware of their own feelings and the feelings of others so that they can be acknowledged, managed, and accepted in healthy ways. By understanding the brain state model—the needs of the survival state, emotional state, and executive states—teachers will be able to help children wire their brains for impulse control and willingness through the skill of self-regulation. The session will explore in-depth the executive brain skills that are a key element for school success. The ultimate goal is to provide teachers with the knowledge to create classrooms where students are emotionally literate.

3213-Using Understanding by Design to Support English Language Learners

Amy Heineke, Loyola University Chicago, Chicago, IL

This presentation centers on how to design rigorous instruction for English language learners (ELLs) using the Understanding by Design (UbD) framework, which embraces backward curricular design to promote students' deep and authentic learning that transfers to real-world contexts. By integrating culturally and linguistically responsive practices throughout the three stages of instructional design, this framework aims for ELLs to have equitable access to high-quality, grade-level curriculum that simultaneously prioritizes academic language development to actively engage and achieve in language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, fine arts, and special area classrooms. This presentation will introduce participants to the "language lens" on UbD, as well as model the design and implementation of disciplinary instruction to prioritize ELLs' backgrounds and abilities, analyze and target academic language, design authentic and responsive assessments, and plan instruction to promote disciplinary learning and language development.

Understanding by Design and UbD are trademarks of Backward Design LLC.

GS3-ClosingGeneral Session
11:15 a.m.–12:15 p.m.

Building Empathic Communities Through Emotion-Informed Approaches in Educational Leadership

Behind students who overcome adversity to successfully navigate the higher education pipeline, you'll often find the actions of an emotionally relevant educator. In this closing general session, Victor Rios will draw on his research and experience to emphasize the importance of emotional support from educators in the lives of marginalized students and discuss how education leaders can train teachers to play a powerful role in guiding students that have been left behind. Learn about the concept of Educator Projected Self-Actualization and how to use it to improve student outcomes and leave with examples of practical strategies that work in helping at-promise students succeed.